Music Education Facts – Education Reform

The era of “left brain” dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, is giving away to a new world in which “right brain” qualities – inventiveness, empathy, and meaning predominate. That’s what business is about today. This is a hard-headed argument that arts education is not ornamental but fundamental for economic reasons. We should be adding and not cutting the arts.Daniel Pink, author of the New York Times and Businessweek bestseller, A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. 2005

“When I hear people asking how do we fix the education system, I tell them we need to do the opposite of what is happening, cutting budgets by cutting music programs…. Nothing could be stupider than removing the ability for the left and right brains to function. Ask a CEO what they are looking for in an employee and they say they need people who understand teamwork, people who are disciplined, people who understand the big picture. You know what they need? They need musicians.”Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, MENC Centennial Congress, Orlando, Florida, June 2007